Contents

Background

The young boy, victim of chance and coincidence.

An ordinary child from an ordinary high school, who is the protagonist of the story. He was saved by Linne, while under attack by a Void. As a result, he awakened to his power of EXS, and Linne has demanded his help. Since then, Linne has made Hyde's house hers, as well, having Hyde do her bidding. All the while, when the Hollow Night falls on the world, she acts on her own, not wanting to expose him to danger. In order to save her, however, Hyde takes matters into his own hands.[2]

Information

Hyde is a 2nd year student in the same high school as Orie, Seth, Carmine and Tsurugi. He and Yuzuriha know each other from their childhood, but currently their relationship is strained due to a "certain incident".

Appearance

Hyde is a young boy of average height with strange, dual-toned, messy hair, being bleach blonde at the front and black at the back end. His eyes are a dark red and have cat slit pupils.

He is commonly seen wearing his school uniform in a rather sloppy manner. His apparel consists of an black, unzipped blazer with gold rims on the lapels, collar and pockets. He has a small belt with a golden buckle each wrapped around the sleeves of the blazer and the right arm is embellished with the emblem of his school. He wears two more normal sized belts around his waist, the top one is done up but not buckled while the bottom one hangs loosely.

Underneath his uniform, Hyde wears a white, long sleeved polo shirt with the topmost button undone, revealing a red shirt underneath. Hyde loosely wears a red tie with two black and red stripes on the back of it. His legwear consists of black pants with two zippers going up to below the knee and black, leather shoes with a gold stripe going across the front.

Personality

Straight-forward and strong-willed, Hyde is an individual who gives his all to any challenge before him and doesn't back down from a fight. Although normally cool-headed, he has a cocky and reckless side to him and tends to head into extremely dangerous situations without a second thought. Despite this, he is shown to be understanding the responsibility of his role as the Insulator's wielder, as well as being well-aware of his life being on the line. Hyde himself has stated that he has no desire for power and only wants to live his life like a normal person.

Hyde is someone who greatly values his friends and comrades. Although he is capable of using Insulator to kill Linne, he decides to postpone doing so as he feels that she has much more to teach him. He was also hesitant to fight Orie due to the positive relationship they have and offers Vatista a place to stay until she completes her mission.

Story

Not much is known about Hyde's childhood or past outside of when he started going to a local kendo dojo, where he ended up meeting Yuzuriha for the first time. The two became almost inseparable, with Hyde following Yuzuriha wherever she went. However, their relationship became strained overtime. Hyde began distancing himself from Yuzuriha more and more and an unknown incident left them separated almost for good, with both of them still trying their hardest to forget.

Episode: Child of Darkness (漆黒の少年)
During a walk back home through a toy store, Hyde ends up knocking into a small child and she knocks into a shelf behind them. Hyde helps them up and offers to help clean up the mess they made. After that, the child leaves without another word. Suspicious of the child, Hyde decides to follow her. He then comes across the same child getting into an argument with a petty thug and he tries to step in by pretending that the child is his little brother, "Yoshio". The attempt fails and Hyde just ends up carrying the child away to safety. When out of the thug's sight, Hyde proceeds to put the child down and discovers it's a girl through somewhat unfortunate means. The girl proceeds to strangle Hyde to the point of unconsciousness. When he wakes up, the girl properly expresses her gratitude for earlier and decides to go on her way, to which Hyde decides to show the girl around Kanzakai and introduces himself to her. The girl introduces herself as Linne.

Hyde proceeds to show Linne around the town, taking her to a crepe restaurant for a break. A few hours pass and Linne decides that she should be going, Hyde offers her to stay at his house due to the rumors of people going missing and being found in a coma a few days later, but she turns it down. The next day, Hyde is seen walking out of school with Orie, a new student who is apparently from an all-girl's school. The two say goodbye and Hyde heads back home. On his way back, he's attacked by the rumored shadows and is backed into an alleyway. Out of nowhere, Linne shows up and kills one of the creatures but not before one of them bites Hyde in the shoulder. A sharp pain engulfs Hyde's hand and a strange, red mass erupts from it and takes the form of some sort of sword, the resulting overload of energy injures the other creature and Hyde collapses. He weakes up to find himself being dragged away by Linne and tries to stand up, to no avail. Linne takes him over to a bench for him to recover and tells him that she will be staying at his home from now on.

After that, Linne, her pet Kuu and her guardian Waldstein move into Hyde's home. They teach Hyde all about the Hollow Night and the Power of Existence so that Hyde would be ready for when the next Hollow Night arrives. During his time as an In-Birth, Hyde becomes known on the streets as the Unknown Actor(不明なる共演者(アンノウンアクター) who accompanies the Princess of the Night Blade.

Episode: Dreams of the Night (乙女は『夜』に夢を見る)
Two weeks later, Hyde searches through the park, on the lookout for someone named "Paradox" and comes across a girl who he at first mistakes for them. He goes to help the girl up, only for her to start calling him a pervert and threatens to call the police. Hyde tries to calm the girl down and if forced to cover her mouth with his hand in order to not cause any issues. The resulting commotion attracts a Void, which bites the girls leg from behind and she falls unconscious. Hyde quickly kills the creature and takes the girl somewhere safe, trying his hardest to not think of anything provocative after the encounter.

He places her in a nearby bench and decides to hide and watch over her, believing it to be irresponsible to leave her. The girl wakes up and tries to recall what happened, once again twisting the story to make Hyde out as the villain. Slightly frustrated by this but glad that the girl is ok, Hyde leaves her alone as she texts a friend to pick her up.

Episode: A Reluctant Hero (それでも俺は行くしかないだろ！？)
Just a mere two days before the next Hollow Night, Hyde is very excited since he has gotten far with his training. While Hyde heads to shop some groceries, he encounters a mysterious boy on the nearby park. This boy makes a suggestion that Hyde absolutely has to meet a certain someone. Hyde heads to the designated place only to discover that the person he's meeting is the Paradox, leader of Amnesia.

Hyde does his best not to raise any suspicions, but in the end he over-confidently declares himself as the new wielder of Insulator. Hilda says that he is free to leave as she can't make any moves under the surveillance.

Arcade Story:
After two days have passed, the Hollow Night finally arrives. Linne and Waldstein suddenly disappear so Hyde begins searching for them. On the way, he encounters Orie and both are surprised that the other is an In-Birth. They then fight for the right to move on to challenge Hilda with Hyde emerging victorious. Soon after, one of two things may happen: Waldstein suddenly appears and engages Hyde in battle to test his strength and resolve; or he bumps into Yuzuriha and Hyde apologizes for the incident that happened in the past before the two duke it out.

Afterwards, Hyde encounters Linne outside the Altar and insists that he fights Hilda while Linne insists that Hyde stays back because Hilda is after the Insulator and she is on a whole other league of power than him. They then fight and Hyde is able to proceed. Paradox offers Hyde a place in Amnesia to help her plans come to fruition, but he refuses. He defeats Hilda but doesn't find it in him to kill her and uses the Insulator to destroy the Abyss, ending the Night. Afterwards, he reunites with Linne and carries her home on his back.

Abilities

Hyde's ability is the EXS of Darkness (漆黒のEXS): Void Red(ヴォイドレッド). This power makes it possible summon a sword called the Indulgence of Insulation(断裂の免罪符(インスレーター)) or "The Insulator" from within his hand. The sword has a power to rend things apart, and can even be used to rip a person's EXS apart - meaning it can kill Immortals and those similar to them. This makes it so that any contact with the blade itself even if not directly damaged by it, is dangerous to its victims in any context.

However, Hyde was noted to be an In-Birth for only around one month compared to the rest of the more experienced characters. As a result, he fights with basic swordsmanship and is stated in one of his victory quotes in that "his body merely moves on his own", indicating his inexperience with his powers. Despite that, Hyde has shown to have adapted to his newfound powers very quickly.

Musical Theme

Introduction Text

He awakens. In order to free the girl from the chains of eternity that seal her fate. The
power burning within him is the "Void". The blade he carries, the Insulator. Each day became
lost in a sea of banality, living under the threat of the Night. The Hollow Night approaches
and where reality and fantasy meet, this young boy takes a stand... to reclaim everything
and return it to nothingness.

He wakes up -- In order to free the girl from the chains of eternity, that seal her fate. The
power burned within him, the "Void". The blade he carries, the Insulator. Each day became
lost in a sea of banality, living under the threat of the Night. The Hollow Night approaches,
and where reality and fantasy meet, this young boy takes a stand... to reclaim everything,
and return it to nothingness.

He wakes up. In order to release the girl caught by the eternal chain from the fate.
The power minced by the body is "nothingness." The power grasped by the hand is an "indulgence."
Every day leveled. The boy who has lived every day vacantly. The day of looming referee.
Under this night. In order to stand on the boundary of reality and fantasy and to return the all to nothing ---

He wakes up. To release the girl bound by the perpetual chain from her destiny.
Her body is engraved ”immortal”. Her hand holds ”indulgence”.
Ordinal days are broken. The boy lived hollow days. The judgement day is impending.
Under this night standing in-between the reality and fantasy to bring back everything to the nothingness.

The red into which his ability overflows a sword blade, black aura.
I slip through partner's defense and despoil physical strength.
It isn't embodiment of just darkness officially,
but he himself doesn't know this keeping barrel ability yet, either.

Creation & Development

Visuals

Hyde's Evolution

Before the story was finalized, the protagonist of this game was just a bunch of constantly changing ideas. He wasn't particularly important as the story itself revolved around Linne's and Hilda's conflict. In the original scrapped setting, the protagonist was supposed to be a young adult who protects a lonely girl. However, after Yoshihara decided to combine adult Linne and little Linne into a single character. The necessity of the main characters high age was lost.

One of the main targets for French-Bread's new fighting game were younger gamers[3]. In order to appeal to them, the setting was shifted into a light-novel styled world very similar to the reality the players live in. That's when the protagonist was changed into a high-school student. Yoshihara received some directions and advice from BlazBlue producer Mori Toshimichi while he was troubled by Hyde's design.[4]

His uniform was dressed down on purpose to make Hyde look slightly more like a bad guy. Black colors and slight red elements were chosen because they reminded one of the Void. The blonde hair was added to increase the extravagance​ in the visuals.[5]

Music

Hyde's Scrapped Theme

Hyde's theme was the first song the composer Raito composer for the game. It was a struggle and took a long time to grasp what kind of franchise UNI really is and how it's going to differentiate itself from "Melty Blood". In the soundtrack booklet, Raito comments that completing Hyde's theme took a little over half-a-year. On August 24th 2014, Raito showcased one of the scrapped versions of Hyde's theme during his "UNI Music Stream".

Gameplay
Originally in the promo back around 2011 for the first installment of UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH, Hyde was able to use one of his special moves, Dark Lotus, standalone on the ground. In the final build, it ended up as a followup move for Black Orbiter.

Trivia

In the localized version, Hyde's title "Unknown Actor" is translated as "The Wild Card".

Despite his name being written in kanji, his character select name is written in katakana instead.

The black section on the hair antennae (ahoge) in Hyde's SD art is missing, leaving it entirely blonde.